syncopated.

dice

flicking switches.

life at the moment is a dice.

there aren't necessarily 6 sides. in fact, not all the sides are equal. some sides always find themselves at the bottom, others invariably find themselves facing upwards.

i think these are my sides.

school
sailing
friends
music
family
happiness, satisfaction

right now, the side with 'school' faces up. cuz sailing home today i've realised i've got maths, chem, eng assignments due next week, econs test on mon, chem on tues. and i've also come to realise during this school week that i've only ever managed to do meaningful work at home once since the start of the year.

on the opposite end of the dice.

talking with the nutritionist today, discussing about how to get up to 75 kg. i'll need to work out at the gym more often.

and another side...

having meaningful friendships to get through these times. not attending orientation doesn't help. which is why yesterday's outing was quite meaningful to me. in the very least i can remember names with confidence!

and then there's how i want to handle my piano, which by itself can take up one post for discussion. thankfully the exam will be next year.

as for family...

thanks for tonight's dinner mom. it was great.

happiness? i need more doses of that. i guess everyone does.


i'm getting the feeling that my dice is spoilt. i'm afraid to roll it. i'm hoping it won't all fall apart at the seams.

We all try hard to live our lives in harmony
For fear of falling swiftly overboard
But life is both a major and a minor key
Just open up the chord...

We all live under the same sky
We all will live we all will die
There is no wrong there is no right
The circle only has one side

. . .

on a lighter note, cai was kinda funny today.

on one of the downwinds, giba told us to sail in pairs and do 8 gybes. the two of us decided to try for 10.

he was in the drink after two.

then i told him that, whenever one of us capsizes, we must start from zero again. hahaha.

down he went again on the 7th.

at the end of the day i told him that our score was probably like -5. cai capsized 8 times in total, and me twice.

good fun.

Strummed at 9:32 PM (x)

physio

interesting commentary on the ib league by tim seow.

it's been a great weekend.

was at the sports council at kallang with anson for this physio test at 9 in the morning. this dude called rushdin and two other nice ladies made us ride this bike at increasing levels of resistance, starting from 60 watts until you cannot tahan anymore.

they used this strange looking mouthpiece to collect exhaled air, and pinched my nose to stop air escaping there. uncomfortable, and eventually drenched with sweat.

which goes on to explain why i walked into school (wondering why there were prefects from other schools) a few minutes before 12 to see a half empty english class.

in effect, i only had physics (and physical ed.) today. haha.

oh, and the yoghurt ice cream is good.

. . .

been teaching pple how to sail the last week... realised how i've been sailing for half my life.

do i ever sound like a boring dude? everytime also sailing, sailing, sailing. throughout all these years, i remember having to come back to my grandma's house on a sunday evening after, say, winning a regatta. there was initially enthusiasm, but after a few years they kinda treated it like 'another day'. and my cousin's had to sit through it all.

parents are always talking about expanding horizons, trying out more activities. dad said yesterday that i seem to concentrate all my energies and 'maturity' on sailing.

but, after all this time, it's still very much the same drug i've been addicted to all along.

dawn said she's planning to go aus for university in future. soon i'll have to really put some thought into what i'm going to do with this life of mine. pretty convinced i can't make it through in a sport.

had a look at this poster of dr. ben tan at the ssc. i guess i'd like to achieve things that he has done - pro sailor and sports doctor rolled into one.

To dance between the scirror's blades
without getting cut.

Strummed at 8:06 PM (x)

doha

i realise i haven't touched my jukebox since i came back. so there's a whole new list for anyone interested. though i doubt anyone really is.


i mentioned this song in the previous post - i have to say it really moves me. inspired me through aus, helped me out of depression, gave me hope. even my mom likes it!

Where did we come from
Why are we here
Where do we go when we die
What lies beyond
And what lay before
Is anything certain in life

They say, Life is too short,
The here and the now
And you're only given one shot
But could there be more,
Have I lived before,
Or could this be all that we've got

chorus

If I die tomorrow
I'd be alright
Because I believe
That after we're gone
The spirit carries on

I used to be frightened of dying
I used to think death was the end
But that was before
I'm not scared anymore
I know that my soul will transcend

I may never find all the answers
I may never understand why
I may never prove
What I know to be true
But I know that I still have to try

(chorus)

bridge

Move on, be brave
Don't weep at my grave
Because I am no longer here
But please never let
Your memory of me disappear

(instrumental)

Safe in the light that surrounds me
Free of the fear and the pain
My questioning mind
Has helped me to find
The meaning in my life again
Victoria's real
I finally feel
A peace with the girl in my dreams
And now that I'm here
It's perfectly clear
I found out what all of this means

(chorus)

to she who's left. and will be back in june.

i'm looking forward to it already. which, unfortunately isn't much of a good thing for my studies, or my consciousness during school hours. especially with so many damn smart pple in school.

cai smsed me like halfway thru sch today to say that he could see white caps from his house. sorry if you're disappointed, bro. go and break manyi's leg la (instead of universal joints). then we can have our rematch in doha.

and while i was hopping around the internet, learning that the asc was postponed cuz they've been constructing a brand new sailing site, i stumbled upon a pic of this dutch dude.

remember a certain steven lefevre? we first met in asc 2000 in singapore. i always remember him taunting me on the start line during our team race - he was singing some very dirty song. i guess i was affected cuz i was supposed to be young and innocent. we were thrashed that race.

then i saw him again in corpus christi in worlds 2002. slightly better impression - he lead the fleet for a couple of days, and excelled in the strong airs.

so, according to what little i could infer from his personal website, he went into the laser 4.7 after opti, and is currently having some measure of success in the radial, along with a magic marine sponsorship. doesn't look to be much bigger than in his opti days though.

it's 21 degrees celcius in doha. 9 knots is reasonable enough. the only thing i'm slightly pessimistic about is the predictably small fleet.


on to other matters. rui xia - 14 points. quite good results. her dad wanted acjc, and so did she, but apparently cannot sia. so much for going home together. cjc instead la.

as for her brother, 205 points, if i'm not wrong. he's in woodlands sec or smth. like, seriously wtf. i think he's too spoilt la. she's complained to me more than a few times how her parents favour the son.

but it's also quite sad that the two of them have to undergo major exams in the same period of time. i can't imagine the stress and tension in that already cramped household.


i'm depressing myself again. gtg listen to that uplifting song again. and listen to stories about pple staying up till 4 in the morning waiting for the lizard in the room to die. ;)

Strummed at 9:50 PM (x)

busy; trials

been busy drowning in hw and thinking about the trials this weekend. first sl says he's sailing, then ssf tells him that he can't sail for fear of causing greater injury.

from what i've been told, he's a rapist when it blows more than 20 in the mornings.


when i walked into the school corridor first thing this morning, i heard milton screeching that orgasmic solo of 'the spirit carries on'. certainly kickstarts the day.

a quote i suddenly remembered, thanks to a classmate of mine. a few weeks ago the barber paid our school a visit.

unfortunately for alex, the teachers didn't like his locks. so off they went.

"they can call my parents, give me detention, i dun care, they can give me demerit point, suspend me, i also dun care, but they cannot fucking cut my hair"


i've decided to recap a bit more...:

1/1

start off the year waking at 11, watching a cheap rent-out teen flick called "going down", eating cereal and soup in bed - doing nothing.

All day
Staring at the ceiling
Makin' friends with shadows on my wall

All night
Hearing voices telling me
that I should get some sleep
Because tomorrow might be good for something

things we do in our free time:

cards - we played every concievable game, including team daidi, 1v1 bridge, stress, poker, guess the number; even a new game called hogging, which was thought of by yours truly.

ps2 - courtesy of zhen's angmoh friend. played gt4 - who drifts wins. nice racing car game, very difficult though. rugby was ok. we wanted to rent burnout takedown but it wouldn't work, despite jeanette and victoria's enthusiasm.

trucks! (or 18 wheels of steel, as maxi prefers it called) - boring but slightly addictive game on his laptop. drive trucks, deliver trailers.

movies, tv

vic has this naughty hidden streak in her; delights in crashing my trucks into oblivion.

fingaircondripsonmylopsidedbed.howtosleep. maxihastopayaus$120forthedamages
andhecan'tfindhis$100.

It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life for me
And I'm feelin' good

3/1

i thought of this while eating yoghurt for breakfast with my two roomates still in bed.

last night, jeanette, quek, maxi and i were looking at our results on the internet. she was trying to convince maxi that the laser radial was of a very high standard, especially when the sailors were so big sized.

maxi countered by pointing out that almost all the top 15 in the full rig had qualified for gold fleet in the world championships in brazil.

i think the problem here is respect (homie.). our sailors are intimidated by the big aussies, the unfamiliar environment, the strong wind, the big names, the fact that they're sailing aus nats. the result is that - i see jeanette and yi hong shying away from the line. and from what i hear from giba, maxi has been making terrible starts, on the wrong end too. which is uncharacteristic. zhen's starts have been ok, but his bane is the downwind, and i have a feeling he's intimidated by that too.

some respect is needed, enough to acknowledge that... hey! you're a good sailor... but try to prove that... but so am i!

cuz at the moment some of us are as good as laying a red carpet out to the finish line for the stars.

sick of maxi's playlist.

i've heard our 'theme song' 'here without you' like 10 times this trip already.

11/1

ok. i haven't written in a week.

on the 4th and 5th we had the finals of the nationals, with vic, yi hong and i in the gold fleet.

i had an exciting 6th in 18 knots, and a 46th, which was after i bruised myself getting caught up in someone else's capsize in 25 knots.

a 10th and a 7th on the second day saw me move up to 12th place and 3rd youth! as well as a red lycra which i'm not very sure what to do with.

(at this part i wrote a very long rant on the terrible logistics of the trip.)

practice race on the 6th (no kidding). the wind came from this particular direction that created huge swells. it was straight out of some billabong surfing ad. hanging on for dear life on the waves. i'd give a lot to hold on to that feeling.

*holds on.

Strummed at 9:57 PM (x)